The Black Girl In Om List: Mariam Mouna.

Moroccan-born Mariam Mouna has felt the urgency that many of us face in our lifetimes around what we’re really doing here. When faced with it herself, despite having an amazing career, friends, and home, she found herself journeying to her roots to uncover what mattered most. Leaning into her intuition, she attended a 4-day transformative experience at a yoga ashram and soon thereafter quit her high-paying job. In inviting Spirit to move through her life, she created her first product line for I See You Wellness in just 5 days, produced a powerful community wellness conference (Zen Day), and has been featured in Essence (shouted out by yours truly). And, guess what? All of this happened this past year. Through the power of affirmations, manifestation, and an abundance mentality, Mariam wants you to know, yes you, that the power to redirect your life and let your light shine bright lives within you. Catch Mariam inspiring on the ‘gram @MariamMouna, book an energy session with her in her Brooklyn studio, and head to @ISeeYouWellness for doses of high vibe reminders and the latest non-toxic products inspired by ancient plant medicine of our ancestors.

How do you polish your inner voice to ensure that the dialogue is one of abundance?

I listen deeply. I take my time to process my inner voice stories and allow them to express themselves while I watch as objectively as I can. I get curious about the stories that aren’t aligned with my intentions and I follow them to their source then guide them home with love and acceptance. This process can look different for everybody. For me, it looks like journaling, meditating, crying and releasing, giving myself a reading or a bath to release what isn’t serving me, affirming myself and most importantly, expressing gratitude for all the blessings that are already here and available to me. Most times, it comes down to mindfulness—being present in this moment. I realized that reality is always kinder than the stories we make up. This process is about stripping ourselves of all illusions and just being present in the now, where all is already here and available to us, waiting for us to recognize that it had always been there. When we do this work, we align ourselves with the highest frequency of acceptance and love which brings abundance in all things.

What are 3 practical steps we can take now in order to manifest businesses and projects we are excited about in 2019?

Envision it. Embody it. Share it. This is good news for the easily overwhelmed because they don’t technically have to “do” anything but align themselves with the highest frequency of the project they want to bring to life.

It can be overwhelming to bring your vision to life. Many of us have powerful ideas and sometimes freeze in the thought of the colossal amount of work it would take to bring them to life. And while it’s important and crucial to be a visionary, it’s not productive to obsess over the details as this can be a creativity killer. When bringing projects to life, I always start with these important steps that all relate to inner work. This is good news for the easily overwhelmed because they don’t technically have to “do” anything but align themselves with the highest frequency of the project they want to bring to life.

Envision it: Use the power of imagination, whether through meditation or journaling, and envision your project as if it’s already here—really feel its energy. Bring it from source into your body and feel it come to life in the highest outcome possible. This is the part where you dream big and without limits or attachments. This process should feel fun and free, like child play.

Embody it: Now that you have the vision and you know how it feels, you can now start operating as if it’s already here—this is manifestation 101. Ask yourself: how would I be acting, walking, talking and being if my vision is already here. This looks like a shift of perspective and a change of habits. You’re trying on this new energy like new clothes and making conscious decisions to recycle old habits that don’t align with the frequency of your project.

Share it: You’ve tried on the energy and it suits you so now you’re ready to share it with others. In this stage, you can tell friends and family about it, maybe create an Instagram account and tell your story. Again, we haven’t “done” anything yet, no actual overwhelming work just yet, we’re simply in creation/play mode. It’s a fluid process of discovery instead of a race to a finish line. During this stage, what tends to happen is that you create momentum and start attracting opportunities to you, which will enable you to take inspired action and get the ball rolling on your project.

This process for me is all about birthing the idea energetically into the physical world, to see how it feels and to test it out without too much commitment. As the idea comes to life, things tend to happen organically because I am already embodying this new energy. Just like human birth, the birthing of ideas requires nurturing and honoring the process without rushing it.

What is the most powerful lesson you've learned about healing the feminine mind, body, and soul?

The most powerful lesson for me was allowance; allowing things to unfold in their own time. Honoring the cycles as they come and go and flowing with all of life’s currents. The feminine teaches us to dance with the universe, to discover our rhythms, to love and appreciate them. Allowance is the act of surrendering with awareness. Allowance and surrender may seem like passive acts but they are in fact very active as we are consistently doing the inner “work” of bringing ourselves to the present moment with a loving awareness and gratitude for life. The feminine teaches us strength through softness, flow and allowance. It is a beautiful unfolding of our divine selves.

What are your foundations for healthy relationships? How do you deal with people in your life who are not meeting your needs, whether that be business or personal?

When it comes to relationships, it’s important to realize that, like anything else, there’s always a beginning, a middle and an end as well as a lesson to be learned. Our job is to be aware and monitor the frequency of our relationships. When relationships are harmonious, you are vibrating at similar frequencies and complementing each other like tuning forks. It’s a flow of giving and receiving with an energy of joy and abundance. When relationships are disharmonious, one tends to feel drained, un-easy or what I call the “unflow” state. This doesn’t make the other person a “bad” person—you are simply vibrating at different frequencies and therefore want different things. The other person usually acts as a teacher or a mirror for what we want or don’t want in our lives, but it is our job to align ourselves with our intentions and feel into relationship energy shifts then act accordingly. Sometimes, it looks like having a conversation or writing a letter (even if you don’t send it to that person) and sometimes it means cutting the energetic cords and letting go of the person with love and acceptance.

Overall, it’s time for us to feel empowered to let go of relationships that no longer align with our intentions, be it a business or a personal relationship. It’s nothing personal, it’s simply vibrational.

What was one of your biggest struggles in creating I See You Wellness and how did you rise above it?

For me, it’s an inner struggle at times but for most times, it’s a delightful and fun experience because as I’m just following the breadcrumbs the universe is sending me. I See You Wellness is not something I thought of from “my head”, it is something that pulled me in a magical way and showed me the way, I had *and still don’t* have an idea of where it’s going or how it will unfold, but I know the feeling of being aligned with my purpose very well, so I follow that relentlessly and the rest is just the fun part where I get to enjoy the ride and be surprised.

The struggle sometimes is making difficult decisions and choosing to stay aligned with my intuition versus caving into “the norm” or what is expected of me. Most of the decisions I’ve made with I See You Wellness make no sense in a business sense or even a personal or intellectual one, but I made them anyway because they felt good and right at that time. It’s the struggle of creating a vision within the terms of mainstream business while being aware of preconditioned ideas AND intentionally following my intuition. I rise above it by choosing mystery and following the breadcrumbs of my journey while staying true to my intentions, no matter what I have to say no to and let go of in that process.

What is your go-to practice for grounding yourself?

Meditation is my go to practice, it is how I begin my day every day. Meditation helps me ground to the present moment and to my body, earth and spirit. Meditation grounds me to all that is and it makes a huge difference in my day when I stay consistent with this practice. I work a lot with plant medicine and I live a plant based lifestyle to help me stay grounded throughout the day. My natural state and comfort zone is somewhere up in the ether so staying grounded is something I’m practicing all the time. This is why I created the Ground Yourself Grounding Roll-On, a powerful essential oil blend made of roots and trees to help me ground back to earth, it even cleanses negative energy and helps me stay clear and peaceful. In fact, that product is now a best seller and I’m so grateful to be able to share this medicine with the world.

What is one area of your life where you are calling in an energy of expansion?

I am calling in expansion of my heart and my capacity to love unconditionally. Unconditional love is the purest, most blissful state I have experienced. I am always seeking expansion in my capacity to love. click to tweet And it can be one of the most challenging yet simplest acts ever, It’s such a paradox sometimes in our duality reality to experience all the injustices on a human level yet find space in our heart to expand on love, but it is a necessary process for our own liberation—a soul that only harbors love is a free soul.

Receive something meaningful from this phenomenal woman? These 20 black women embody our mission fully. And their journeys over the past year illuminate what it means to root to rise. Share with us on social how you plan on doing the same in the year to come. #BGIORootToRise